Policing of Palestine Movement in Canada
A new report has been published by the Anti-Racism Program of the CJPME Foundation (ARPCF), documenting how Canadian authorities have responded to pro-Palestinian activism with disproportionate policing, surveillance, and legal targeting.
Titled “Policing Palestine Solidarity: A crisis of Civil Liberties in Canada (2021-2025),” the 71-page report finds that in the wake of Gaza solidarity mobilizations, state institutions increasingly treated a largely peaceful human-rights movement as a “national security threat,” and built an enforcement posture designed to deter participation rather than facilitate Charter-protected protest.
Based on protest data from 2021–2025 and extensive documentation, the report highlights a stark disparity: pro-Palestine demonstrations accounted for 10.1% of all protests but drew 37% of all police interventions, even though over 96% of pro-Palestine protests were entirely peaceful.
The report highlights key findings:
- Disproportionate policing: Pro-Palestine protests faced dramatically higher rates of police intervention than any other protest cause in Canada (2021–2025).
- Surveillance and coordination: The report describes an “unprecedented apparatus” of surveillance and inter-agency coordination, including integration between federal agencies and municipal police forces.
- Legal and political escalation: The report warns that proposed federal measures—including Bill C-9 (Combatting Hate Act)—risk codifying repression through “bubble zones” and expanded discretion around “hate” and symbols.
The report urges governments to act immediately, including:
- Withdraw or fundamentally overhaul Bill C-9 and reject “bubble zone” style repression that criminalizes legitimate protest.
- Launch a Federal Commission of Inquiry to investigate political interference and the national-security framing used to justify these policing operations.
- Amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to include “political belief” as a prohibited ground of discrimination, to help stop political persecution and institutional retaliation against pro-Palestine and anti-Zionist speech.
- End the criminalization pipeline (including punitive bail conditions and “hate-motivated” enhancements applied to protected political speech).
- Dismantle surveillance and demilitarize public-order policing (including limits on drone/biometric surveillance and the use of militarized crowd-control units).
Canada cannot claim to uphold democratic rights while building the machinery to suppress dissent. The report warns that once these tools are normalized, they can be used against any movement that challenges the political status quo.
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